American Twilight; The lamps of liberty are going out.

Mark Steyn  "Metaphorically speaking, the lights of liberty were certainly dimmed by Roberts’s hideously convoluted Supreme Court decision: I don’t see why I should be fined $695 for declining to participate in an overpriced and dysfunctional “insurance” “market.” "

Bing

...."Obituaries for the late Andy Griffith generally glossed over his career finale as a pitchman for Obamacare. But he was a canny choice to sell the unsellable, for is not “health” “care” “reform” the communitarian virtues of beloved small-town Mayberry writ large? The problem is you can’t write Mayberry large. And, if you attempt it, it leads not to Mayberry but to Stockton, Calif., and to a corrupt, dysfunctional swamp. A large Sweden is a contradiction in terms. It cannot be done, and the more determinedly you try to do it, the more you will preside over a ruined wasteland." 

Obama Won’t Keep Middle Class Tax Vow

Jonathan S. Tobin  "In a transparent effort to pre-empt Republican arguments about tax cuts, President Obama unveiled a proposal today for a one-year cut for all Americans making less than $250,000 per year. While calculated to play well with his faux working class campaign rhetoric, the president’s plan makes no economic sense. Implementing a massive tax increase on those with the capital to invest it and therefore create jobs is not the sort of thing that will help a flagging economy. Nor will it do anything to stem the bleeding that creates job reports such as the one released last Friday that illustrated the country’s unemployment problem. But, as James Pethokoukis writes at the American Enterprise Blog, the president’s dare to Congress to pass such a plan or to implement a simpler tax code is pure political baloney."

 James Pethokoukis: Is Obama’s new promise to lower middle-class tax rates credible?

"Of course, he had an opportunity to do just that — lowering rates and eliminating tax breaks — by embracing Simpson-Bowles, but he passed.  

"Also, recall what liberal journalist Noam Scheiber wrote in his recent book, The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery."

Get Ready for More Charges of Racism

Bruce Thornton; "Obama has only one card left to play and it has been over-used and discredited."
"The implosion of the Obama administration will create more and more desperate narratives on the part of progressives as we head toward the November election. With no record of achievement to run on, Obama must try to misdirect voters by shifting blame elsewhere: so far George Bush, the Eurozone crisis, the Japanese tsunami, even ATMs have all been fingered as the cause of our sluggish economic growth and high unemployment. Since the barrel of excuses is close to empty, get ready for something scraped from the bottom: Americans don’t support Obama because Americans are racists."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23742070@N07/3945326880/

The soon-to-be-gone Neal Boortz gives us his opinions on about everything

Some Monday random thoughts
Basic truth:  People who just want a check vote Democrat.  People who want a PAYCHECK vote Republican.
....More here:

• Right now the maximum federal tax on dividends is 15%.  But … we elected Obama.  So next year the maximum federal tax rate on dividends will be 43.4%.  What do you think this does to folks who invest in stocks that pay annual dividends?  Oh yeah!  Let’s reelect this guy!

• Florida Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill in the Senate that would have allowed employers to give a raise to a union employee who did especially good work.  The purple-shirted goons of the Service Employees International Union fought it, and the Senate defeated the bill 54-45.  Don’t you just loooooove unions? 

• The unemployment rate has dropped in every single state that elected a Republican governor in 2010.  Not so for all states that elected a Democrat governor.

Some (not-so-fun) facts about the June jobs report   "We decided to put together a handy little guide, a compilation of various facts about the latest jobs report, which should be enough to convince even the most brain-dead liberal that Barack Obama is a colossal failure.We decided to put together a handy little guide, a compilation of various facts about the latest jobs report, which should be enough to convince even the most brain-dead liberal that Barack Obama is a colossal failure."  Read on...


Want jobs? Elect Republicans   "In 2010, Americans from throughout the country elected 17 Republican governors to various states throughout the nation.  Since those governors were inaugurated in January 2011, every single one of those states has seen a decrease in their unemployment rates." 

Top Ten Reasons to Vote for Obama

Sally Zelikovsky  First, some of those reasons to vote for Barack Obama:
....(8) He's awesome (when using his nice voice to sing Al Green songs and attend over 150 fundraisers...while Rome burns);
(9) He'll tax the G-D rich and make those selfish people pay their fair share (until he runs out of other people's money.  Hey, Michelle! How about another $2,000 sundress, $500 pair of gardening shoes or $400,000 vacation with 40 of your BFFs?);
(10) He needs four more years to...put it all together (because he messed up so badly during the first four years--during his practice round as President).
....

Here are ten random reasons NOT to re-elect Obama:
(1) He has done more to divide this nation between races, religions, economic and educational status than any other human being in our history;
(2) He has ushered in the longest, sustained period of unemployment-40 consecutive months at 8% and higher-since the Great Depression;
(3) He has spent so much taxpayer money, even fetuses are burdened with a debt of approximately $45,000 before they come to term;
....
"Like the sign says:  "Obama was one bad hire."  

Signed, NOT doing fine in the private sector.

A Democrat consultant gets it  

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said that "in this economy, [Republican presidential candidate Mitt] Romney has to be disqualified" in order for Obama to be reelected.She gets it...a very bright lady. I wish she worked for the GOP.  Do the Romney folks get it too? Inquiring minds want to know.

Brad Pitt's mom bullied into silence

WND  "Jane Pitt, mother of actor Brad Pitt, has been scared into silence by the hate-filled, vulgar and even violent reaction to her public assertion that Barack Obama is “a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage.”
"Pitt has even been the subject of death threats following her letter to the editor of Missouri’s Springfield News-Leader in which she asserted failure to vote for Republican presumptive presidential candidate Mitt Romney constituted a vote for Obama.
...."A tweet from “I Bleed Gaga” echoed similar sentiments, saying, “Brad Pitt’s mom wrote an anti-gay pro-Romney editorial. Kill the b—-.
" ”Other comments included, “F— you, brad pitt’s mom, the gay community made your kid a star, you whacko,” and, “Brad Pitt’s mom is a dumb c—.”Many of the comments told her to commit vulgar sexual acts with the commentator.

One case in point is this blast from Perez Hilton: "Brad Pitt's Mom Wants U To Vote For Romney Because He Hates Gays"


Another : Brad Pitt’s Mom Is A Right Wing Gay Bashing Religious Fanatic
This post also links to this under the following, um, heterophobic tags:    Brad Pitt's Mom, brad pitts mom religious fanatic, gay boycott of brad and angelina, jane pitt hate monger, jane pitt hates gays, jane pitt Religious Fanatic, jane pitt Right Wing conservative, mitt romney abortion hypocrite, romney on abortion

Obama In 2004: Dismisses Job Creation Of 310,000 New Jobs

RealClearPolitics  "After the economy added 310,000 jobs in May 2004 and the unemployment rate was 5.6%, then-candidate Barack Obama used the Democrat weekly radio address to attack the Bush administration for citing good economic numbers."


See the video here.

Neal Boortz's Unified grand theory for voting democrat:  

People vote for Democrats because they believe that Democrats will give them access to other people’s money.

...."Let’s just try this theory out on some more visible Democrat sycophants. How about the class warfare crowd. Are they really upset that some people make a lot of money? Really, no. They’re upset that it’s OTHER people making that money, not them. The folks who rail against capitalism and profits? Profits aren’t the problem. Who gets to spend the profits … THAT’s the problem. The rich need to pay “their fair share” of taxes? It’s not a question of the rich not paying their fair share, it’s a question of the government getting more money out of the evil rich so that it can be spread around among Democrat voters."

Krauthammer: The imperial presidency revisited

Charles Krauthammer  "... the court’s Arizona immigration decision, issued three days earlier, remains far more significant than appreciated. It was generally viewed as mixed or ambiguous because the Justice Department prevailed in striking down three of the law’s provisions. However, regarding the law’s central and most controversial element — requiring officers to inquire into the immigration status of anyone picked up for some other violation — the ruling was definitive, indeed unanimous.

No liberal-conservative divide here. The smackdown was 8-0. (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself.) Not a single justice found merit in the administration’s claim that this “show me your papers” provision constituted an impermissible preemption of federal authority.

...."The Department of Health and Human Services issues Obamacare regulations treading so heavily on the free-exercise rights of Catholic institutions that Obama’s own allies rebel. The new regulation concocted to tame the firestorm blithely orders private insurers to provide free contraceptives to employees of the objecting religious institutions. By what possible authority does a president order private companies to provide free services? To say nothing of the 1,200 Obamacare waivers granted with royal arbitrariness according to the (political) whims of an HHS secretary."

The Obama Years, illustrated

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/

Obama and his foreign policy

From Foreign Affairs: How Obama Lost Canada  "But instead of acting on economic logic, the Obama administration caved to environmental activists in November 2011, postponing until 2013 the decision on whether to allow the pipeline.

"Obama’s choice marked a triumph of campaign posturing over pragmatism and diplomacy, and it brought U.S.-Canadian relations to their lowest point in decades. It was hardly the first time that the administration has fumbled issues with Ottawa. Although relations have been civil, they have rarely been productive. Whether on trade, the environment, or Canada’s shared contribution in places such as Afghanistan, time and again the United States has jilted its northern neighbor. "

toonpool

Russian bomber intrusion near Pacific coast is second in two weeks...  "The U.S. defense official called the latest Bear H incident near the U.S. West Coast “Putin’s Fourth of July Bear greeting to Obama.”

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former Alaska commander for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said the latest Bear H intrusion appears to be Russian military testing.  

“It’s becoming very obvious that Putin is testing Obama and his national security team,” 

....McInerney said the Bear H flights are an effort by the Russians to challenge U.S. resolve, something he noted is “somewhat surprising as Obama is about to make a unilateral reduction of our nuclear forces as well as major reductions in our air defense forces.”

“Actions by Russia in Syria and Iran demonstrate that Cold War strategy may be resurrected,” he said.

“These are not good indications of future U.S. Russian relations.”...Via Drudge.
The attached cartoon must come with the following caveat: it implies that Clinton is the foreign policy expert. But bear in mind she is still a liberal Democrat and the tool of the American left, which feels this nation is to roll over and never assert itself to the enemy because we deserve anything that comes to us.

DOT Construction Signs Hacked To Read 'Impeach Obama'

Channel 2 News, Anchorage   "Signs that normally display closure and detour information, like the one on Minnesota Drive near 100th Avenue, were changed to read “Impeach Obama.” That particular sign wasn’t fixed until sometime between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Thursday.

"It happened because DOT says it doesn't lock the boxes on the signs that hold the message control pad.

"Construction managers say sign-hacking has never happened before, so they never thought to lock the boxes.

"DOT says that changed this morning, and now all of them will be locked."
Well, not exactly hacked in the geek sense; more like someone opened the panel and made a software change. As you drive America's highways, expect to see these with locks on them from now on.

The stupidity juggernaut; No “gendered pronouns” please

Hot Air  "First of all, Mr. … Ms. … um … “Van” doesn’t want to be referred to with a “gendered pronoun.” Not for nothing, but as wonderful as the English language is, we’re still working with a finite number of words here. Once you remove “he” and “she” from the mix, we’re pretty much left with “it.” And I’m fairly sure somebody is going to be offended by that. You’re sort of throwing a wet blanket on your future news coverage potential, pal."
....  I only just found out this week that “oriental” is considered an offensive term. Of course, I was never entirely clear on what Oriental meant, other than a vague reference to people or things on the other side of the Pacific ocean. But apparently you’re not supposed to say that now either. I tell you, I simply can’t keep up. (By the way, are people from India “Asians?” Isn’t India in Asia?) Of course, I was recently informed that you’re not supposed to call people of the Muslim faith “Muslims” any more either, but that guy was selling pretzels on the sidewalk near my home and seemed somewhat confused, so I’m not sure how much of an authority he is. One can never be too careful, though.
"But be that as it may, we’ll have to soldier on. Clearly we need an alternative to “he” and “she” for the modern era. Does it already exist? Any suggestions?"

Mark Steyn, in his column entitled,  It’s a Barnum and Bailey World . . .   "Alas, this long overdue shattering of the BGLTQ ceiling was marred by the Harvard Crimson’s grossly insensitive coverage:

An earlier version of this article used the pronoun “she” to refer to Vanidy “Van” Bailey, the newly appointed director of bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer student life. In fact, Bailey prefers not to be referred to by any gendered pronoun.

"I’ll bet Elizabeth Warren is kicking herself for not thinking of that one.

So America is now the first nation in history in which people take on six figures of debt for the privilege of entrusting their education to persons with no pronouns. That seems likely to work."

I wonder what Monty Python would do with all this. The video below may ball park it.

 

Remember those riotous "Newhart" scenes depicting town meetings with all the show's zany characters in one room? Dick Loudon would exclaim, "I've never seen so much stupidity in one place!"  At this moment I cannot think of a better thing to say.  TD